i can't look at the stars
by swirlofwords
Summary: When Maya thinks of stars, she thinks of Cam.


**A/N:** To be honest, I have no idea what this is or whether or not I like it. But I'm consumed with too many Camaya feels, and I needed some sort of funnel for them. This is slightly AUish and nonlinear.

Lyrics and title are from _Stars_ - Grace Potter & the Nocturnals.

* * *

_i can't look at the stars_

_they make me wonder where you are_

* * *

They were in the Stargazers Club together.

It was his idea, actually, because when he was younger, his grandfather taught him all the constellations in the sky. He even had a telescope back home in Kapuskasing, along with a star chart that he promised to show her sometime.

Maya didn't know much about stars and growing up in a city like Toronto, never paid them much attention either, but spending time with Cam and learning more about him appealed. Plus, it seemed kind of romantic, being together under a blanket of glittering stars.

Over the weeks, Cam taught her some of the constellations. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder and allowing her gaze to follow his finger as he traced the shapes in the sky. He whispered stories in her ear of Aquarius, the water she bore trickling between the other stars, and of Pegasus, galloping across the night sky, and of her favorite, Perseus, the hero who, with the gifts of three gods, was able to slay Medusa.

His gaze was still trained on the hero he spoke of when she leaned forward impulsively, kissing his cheek. PDA was not their thing; in fact, in the last two months of dating, they'd only kissed, public or private, a total of five times.

Cam gave her a crooked smile, asking, "What was that for?"

Maya smiled softly, shrugging her thin shoulders. "For teaching me the stars."

* * *

Four days after Cam committed suicide, Maya came home from school to see a piece of mail waiting on the kitchen counter with her name on it. She never got mail anymore, so she could only approach this as a pleasant surprise, possibly from a grandparents or other older relative. She turned the envelope over in her hands, her thumb brushing over the stamp, a small portrait of the van Gogh's painting, Starry Night. There was no return address, which was weird, but she broke through the envelope's seal anyway.

What she found inside the envelope made her stomach lurch. Her lunch, food from the caf that hadn't been all that great going down, threatened to rise back up, and she hastened to shove the piece of paper back into the envelope. But it was too late. The words were already burned into her brain, never to be erased.

_May 10, 2013_

_Please join us in commemorating the life of Campbell Saunders._

* * *

Cam Saunders was a star on the ice.

She should have figured, knowing that he was all anyone could talk about when he first started Degrassi. He was that hockey kid, only sixteen and destined for the NHL. He was someone that everyone would be proud of, someone his teammates would boast about playing with, someone that puck bunnies lost their minds for.

But they never talked about hockey, outside of brief mentions and photo booth confessions. In fact, it was in her room when he was kissing her for the first time that she vowed to herself not to bring up hockey with him. It was evidently a sore subject, especially when it came to everyone's expectations regarding his hockey career, and she was not willing to press the subject if he did not want to.

That didn't mean that he wasn't talented, though.

Maya sat in the stands, only half knowing what was actually going on in the game, watching in awe as her boyfriend's skill burned up the ice like the physical stars in the sky.

* * *

Harry was nothing at all like Cam.

He kissed like he was angry, like he wanted to hurt her, all teeth and tongue, and it was all Maya could do to not let herself be completely dominated by him. Initially, it was scary, albeit exciting, until she heard him fiddling with his belt buckle, in which case the only emotion coursing through her body was fear.

Cam was always the exact opposite, feather light and hesitant, and sometimes, she would be huff in frustration and grab onto his shirt, pulling him closer just to get a proper kiss out of him. Those kisses were nice, too, maybe even more than nice when her eyes slipped shut and all she could see behind her lids were stars. Stars in the shape of constellations he spoke of and of constellations whose stories still needed to be told. Stars that were now forever etched in her mind but could never be conjured by boys with curly hair and kisses that bruised.

But regardless, Cam's kisses were always sweet. Never pushed any boundaries. Never made her feel uncomfortable. They were innately Campbell Saunders, and really, what more could she ask for?

Harry was nothing at all like Cam.

Which she supposed was sort of the point.

* * *

They had been dating for exactly one month when she found a CD in her locker.

Music was always considered her thing, while hockey was his, but having stolen an earplug on more than one occasion when it was evident Cam was lost in his music, she knew that he had good taste – thankfully, so, too. Maya could never date someone who liked bad music.

She'd asked him before to make her a CD sometime, stating that music truly says a lot about a person, but that had been a while ago, and she'd suspected that he had forgotten. Clearly, he hadn't.

On top of the sleeve the CD sat in was a yellow post it note and written in his messy scrawl, it said,

_Look at the stars, look how they shine for you – Love, Cam_

A smile graced her features, recognizing the Coldplay lyrics immediately but even more importantly, the weight that they held. Stars were kind of their thing, in a weird way, between constellations and stargazing and all the physical and metaphorical stars in between.

* * *

The day Campbell Saunders took his own life was cloudy. It was almost as if the entire atmosphere know and would not dare show their faces on a day as heartbreaking as that. Even when the sun had set, not a single star could be seen in the sky that night.

And Maya could not have been more grateful.


End file.
